No why. Just Here

90% of the hipsters you see at exhibition openings nowadays are there for the free booze. Everyone knows it, but no-one mentions it. Art is merely the white elephant in the room, something that’s there to make an early-evening piss-up more awkward than it should be. Here’s the drill. You walk in, you normally wear Vans, (or anything from Espionage or Carhartt is also acceptable), then, for approx 2.5 mins act like you’re there for the stuff on the walls. When that novelty has passed, you grab a beer, catalogue in hand, (so the bartender knows you have pure intentions and may even be a potential buyer), and then, it’s down to business. By ‘business’ I mean tuning, and boozing interchangeably.

I say, if viewing art has become a social activity and an art gallery a pub alternative, then why not eliminate the middle man altogether? Oh wait, someone did.

Leave it to the always underestimated Irish, to come up with something that everyone in Australia was too drunk to think of. Case in point: A bar that is the actual artwork. In a 12 by 20 foot plywood box, slightly bigger than a shipping container, Theo Sims, an Irish-born neo-conceptualist, has erected the Candahar, a painstakingly accurate model of a Belfast pub. The location: the very hot-right- now Vancouver, Canada, under the roof of the Playwrights Theatre Centre. The work has been shown in Canada four times before (those Canadians love a drink) and is actually an amalgamation of three Irish pubs, all of which Sims had spent time in during his period as a student at the University of Ulster. This is masculine sentimentality at its most acceptable.

A self-taught carpenter, Sims built the entire thing himself. Jesus couldn’ have done it better. It’s very authentic looking. From the bar taps to the reproductions of buzzers once used to alert the barman of a thirsty customer, Sims has an unmistakable eye for detail. The only differences between the reproduction and the original are that a) Whistler Brewing Company beer has replaced Guinness, and b) customers/the active audience pay for their bevies with a ticket, not cash. This is because, the Candahar is not a bar, but a ‘theatre space’. Whatever.

There is a great history of relational aesthetics in art, ranging from Allan Kaprow’s interest in audience interaction, to Rikrit Tiravanija’s home cooked meals served in a gallery space. Even Sydney-based collective, Bababa International are asking us to get involved. Throw alcohol into the mix though, and things are bound to get interesting. It’s actually the best idea I’ve heard since someone suggested Tom Cruise hurry up and come out of the closet.